Raymond Hains, Founder of Nouveaux Realistes, Dies at 78

PARIS, Nov. 15, 2005—French artist Raymond Hains has died. Best known for his work done between 1949 and 1961, Hains collaborated with his friend Jacques Villegle to produce decollages. The works, resembling Cubist collages and sometimes Abstract Expressionist paintings, were weathered posters removed from their public contexts and displayed in galleries and museums. In the tradition of Marcel Duchamp, the posters themselves were found and unaltered.

Hains will be remembered for more than decollage. In 1960, he founded (with critic Pierre Restany and artists Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely and Villegle) the Nouveaux Realistes, a movement later seen as a precursor of American Pop Art.